Comedian Jay Mohr is back on his feet

Chad Berndtson

Thursday

Apr 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMApr 30, 2009 at 7:36 AM

It’s hard to believe a natural wiseacre like Jay Mohr would ever think of walking away from stand-up comedy, but that’s where the actor/comedian found himself a few years ago, unsure of his motivation and reluctant to grace a stand-up stage for a stretch of nearly two years.

It’s hard to believe a natural wiseacre like Jay Mohr would ever think of walking away from stand-up comedy, but that’s where the actor/comedian found himself a few years ago, unsure of his motivation and reluctant to grace a stand-up stage for a stretch of nearly two years.

“We’re a little different at 38 than we are at 28, aren’t we?” the New Jersey-born Mohr said. “These days I’m madly in love with the love of my life, I have a great son, we’re going to make more babies, and well, I’m just not as angry anymore. I’m not just up on stage yelling and trying to get girls and getting drunk and fighting. That’s just not the person I wanted to be anymore. I didn’t like doing stand up as much because I had changed as a person, but I was bringing the old act up on stage.”

None of which means, by the way, that Mohr has lost his fastball – he’ll still be the profane, razor-edged, Christopher Walken-spouting Jay Mohr when he returns to stand-up. It just so happens he feels a little better about life and a lot better about love.

“I tell stories now. A lot of Tracy Morgan stories, Norm Macdonald stories, Harvey Keitel stories – it’s more of a one-man show than a stand-up act. It’s not like, hey, airline food is so small, ha ha, [expletive][expletive],” he said. “Before, it was a lot of filler for filler’s sake – a lot of shock value stuff I wanted to try out, and just go up there and stir [expletive] up. But don’t worry. I’m all for a good sex or [expletive] run. I’m still dirty and I still swear like a trucker in my everyday life – it’s an R-rated act for sure. It’s just not R-rated for the sake of doing. It’s like when, in doubt, talk about your [butt]. That’s lazy.”

Mohr married actress Nikki Cox, best known for her run on NBC’s “Las Vegas,” in 2006. (He was previously married to and has one son by former model Nicole Chamberlain).

The two met on the set of “Las Vegas” when Mohr made a guest appearance presciently playing a man who asks Cox’s character to marry him.

“She said no that day,” Mohr said, laughing. “But that was the only time.”

Late last year, Mohr legally added “Cox” to his full name, which is now Jon Ferguson Cox Mohr.

“We’re a family,” he said. “What’s funny – what’s amazing – when I did that, you hit a few message boards and the vitriol that can fly back and forth from people you’ve never met talking about you taking your wife’s name. The Internet is the world’s largest bathroom stall. You can write something, with no accountability, and just log off. But I don’t know these people, and I’m glad TigerCat69 or whoever has an opinion on what I do. The great thing is, if I never go onto that message board, it never exists. It’s like a tree falling in the woods with no one around.”

Mohr for the first time has a lead role in a TV sitcom: “Gary Unmarried,” which premiered on CBS in September and got picked up for a full season in November. The show, which stars Mohr and Paula Marshall as a divorced couple trying to share custody of kids and start new relationships, copped a People’s Choice Award in January.

“I never got to play a Gary before. I was always shooting something on film or I was the third lead or something,” said Mohr, who’s had extensive TV experience on everything from “Saturday Night Live” and “Ghost Whisperer” to “The Jeff Foxworthy Show” and the short-lived “Action,” but never got much taste of a spotlight role. “It’s kind of what you wait your whole life for. When they asked me, I didn’t think it was the way to start, but then I properly sussed out the details, put it back on the table and said yes. With alacrity!”

Ah, yes, and the Walken thing – if there’s one thing Mohr can’t break free of, it’s his impersonation of Christopher Walken. The halting, theatrical voice and oblong vowels that are a part of his Walken are just one in a broad collection of sharp impersonations – he does a hilarious Al Pacino, as well as Morgan, Macdonald and a boatload of others – but it’s the Walken “that people seem to like,” he says.

“I enjoy it more now, because now with all the others it’s like holding seven cards instead of five, and I can blend the Walken in,” he said. “Before it was like, my Walken’s here, it’s the end of the show – the Rolling Stones playing ‘Satisfaction’! – Mohr’s doing Walken and that’ll be it. Now I can close with any one of ‘em, and feel OK about that.”

The first time Mohr did his Walken impression in public was on the set of “Suicide Kings” (1997) the cult, jet-black-comic thriller with a bunch of rich twentysomethings plotting the kidnapping of a big shot (Walken) and not realizing he’s a mob boss.

“I see him maybe once every five years or so and he always gives me a nice smile and nod,” Mohr said. “I did it around him then [on the set] and I think it confused him. He was thinking I was mocking him, and there’s two people in the world you don’t want to be on the bad side of: Christopher Walken and [actor/comedian] Joe Rogan.”

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